myironeyes | A Crab Dressed like a Dementor, Pack Lunches, and Pie

[Private to Ned.]

I need help.

[Spam for Kelsier]

[He gave Kelsier time to hide, because - well, he's not a complete hypocrite. But he's knocking on Kel's door now, and he's just as willing to pick the lock as he was on the other barge.]

[Private to Alpha]

I can't see anything on the communicator screens, so I don't know what your room looks like. But if you have not yet acquired a replacement for your recessed pit, I could make a fabric hammock.

They're...easier to move around than solid furniture, if you change your mind about what you want where.

[Spam for Nathan, backdated to several days after the mirror even but before White Flag - 5th or 6th?]

[He knocks only once. He has cherry-raspberry pie.]

[Open Spam all over the barge, from a few days after the mirror event through White Flag, particularly relevant to Jean, Cassel, Alex, Zane, and Ryan, because you guys now have a pointy extra shadow.]

[Several months of memories of being used as a brutal nightmare of a weapon have made Marsh even more skittish, if possible, than he was when he first board the barge. He skulks and lurks and generally keeps to the corners of the regrettably well-lit corridors. He ducks into empty cabins when people pass in the halls, and he collects food at odd times. It is, however, less absent than his usual hermitage, because he's actively stalking a few people at a distance whenever they emerge from hiding.]

[OOC: feel free to run into him while he's watching out for someone else, or if you want to say your character was chopped to pieces once or a dozen times by mind controlled!Marsh in the mirror event, he might feel obligated to quasi-discretely check on them too. Just let me know!]

[Open Spam, CES]

[It's pitch dark, except for the small area illuminated by the light spilling in through the open door; Marsh doesn't need light. The CES gave him the rebellion's cave systems today, and although there are torches stashed here in there in the tunnels, Marsh doesn't need them. The rock is solid, cool but not cold, and he's tucked just around a bend, holding still. Letting himself be still. He isn't sure himself if it's comforting or just stalling, but at least it is familiar.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I am sorry for hurting you.

[And then he vanishes around a corner in a scuttling flurry of shadow. Alex will probably see him looming in a doorway again a few hours later.]

[He opens his mouth to respond, and then - Marsh is gone. Frowning tightly, Alex tucks his chin and keeps walking.]

[When they cross paths again, he looks up at Marsh seriously and continues as though he was never interrupted.]

I'm not sorry it was done. Sorry you had to do it.

I chose to.

[Which doesn't mean he's happy about doing it. But it means something.]

Yeah. You did.

[He squints up at Marsh, square-shouldered and entirely unafraid. Just resigned. What happened happened. Can't unhappen. He doesn't resent any of it that he didn't do, or whatever part of himself that was.]

You took care of Nathan.

I care for him.

[Alex does too, he's pretty sure. The benefits of stalking!]

[He nods, solemn, his lips a tight line. Yes. Marsh cares for him - that much is clear, from there and from these brief moments here. Alex doesn't know much about Marsh but that Zane loves him, and it's never been his job to exist on anything but Zane's periphery.]

[He wonders about the spikes, and if they hurt.]

[Then he shakes his head.]

You took care of me, too. Kind of.

I don't . . . maybe that's messed up. But it's better for me to be hurt than to hurt people.

[He would never, not ever, have forgiven himself for killing Nathan. It's likely he'll never forgive himself for attempting.]

I understand.

[Very, very grave. Alex knows how he was used. Charles made him more of an errand boy, but the other psychics were more elaborate.]

I am not. Used to committing violence willingly. But I am glad I could. Stop you. From that.

[Grave. Alex can do grave. He's a natural talent.]

That's why I said I'm sorry you had to do it.

[If Alex could absolve him of guilt, he would. But he can't. That's not how guilt works. You don't get to take it off when you want to, or when it's inconvenient. It weighs.]

Is it hard? To control.

[The 'it' is vague because he doesn't know how to explain what he means. He knows what happened, more or less, but doesn't understand the intricacies, because in that place he didn't care. Here, he cares. A lot.]

[There was a moment, right after, when six years of visceral habit, a lifetime of thwarted protective instincts, and a deep, terrible well of misery collided into an utterly vivid, seemingly inexorable urge to just keep going, to chop Alex to pieces and then go at the pieces until there was nothing recognizable left.

He didn't need Ruin. The frenzy was there.]

When anything - pushes me. I crumble. Psychically, I mean. I have too many holes in my foundations.

When it's just me, most of the time I hate what I've done so much that it - seems unthinkable. But it doesn't actually do anything to keep what I'm...capable of at bay, when I'm angry enough. I just hate myself just as much as whoever it is, just for wanting to. Do something.

[Alpha. Elena. He didn't hate Havok, but part of him was happy, killing him. Keeping Nathan safe.]

Edited 2013-11-14 04:12 (UTC)

[There are a number of significant similarities between the two of them. Alex sees these, or is starting to. But while it's hard for him to control his own power, it isn't hard not to want to hurt people. No one has ever gotten in his head and realigned him to take joy in causing pain.]

[He is much better, now, than he was at taking difference for what it is: something often insurmountable, rather than something to be defeated. To be understood, but not known, because there are some things that just can't be known if you haven't lived them.]

[So he frowns at the notion of crumbling and stuffs his hands in his pockets, nodding. It's a unique and horrific burden that Marsh carries. All Alex knows how to do is acknowledge it.]

I don't crumble. Not like that. But I know about the other thing.

[Hating himself, he means; he thinks Marsh will know.]

You can carry more of it than you think you can. And you can.

Let more of it go, than you think you can.

[It's not less than it was, two years ago. But it is incrementally lighter. Part of him thinks he should hate himself for that, too, but - he doesn't have to. And most days, he doesn't.]

That's what they tell me.

[It's medium-dismissive. He's more inclined to listen to Marsh than someone else.]

[But he does acknowledge, after a moment--]

I've done a lot, while I've been here. More than I expected to.

[His mouth twists. It doesn't look like a smile. But it's not a grimace, either.]

Me too.

If it doesn't beat you down . . .

[He smiles crookedly.]

It pulls you up. Or both.

[Often both. Best case scenario is probably both. But sometimes he can be an optimist. And he knows, too, that he's been lucky in how little the Barge has had to break him to rebuild him stronger.]

The pressures are different here.

[He still hurts people, whenever anyone gets their lines caught on the hooks already in him and tugs. But the weight of the Lord Ruler's history is absent; he is no one's worst nightmare but his own.]

[He nods and looks down. At his shoes. Because he does feel very small right now, very young, very naive, for all that he understands what Marsh is saying. Fragile, he thinks, is the word.]

[Eventually:]

Can I help?

[Which is naive. But he found a way to help Ben in the end, or rather Ben provided him with one. So maybe.]

[He really is, mostly, alright. His brother is alive. Nathan is - talking to him, at least. And Alex will recover. The last, more than anything, soothes him. But he understands the urge to be helpful, and he has too many projects to make Ned his eyes for all of them.]

...I need someone to match colors for me.

Oh.

[This is not what he was expecting. He blinks and then, hesitantly, smiles.]

Yeah, I can. I can do that.

[A mildness to his shoulders and his breathing that might on someone else serve as a smile, then a nod.]

Come, then.

[He turns, goes down all the stairs to his cabin on level 8 and the tailor's shop waiting inside it.]

Edited 2013-12-21 06:10 (UTC)

A Crab Dressed like a Dementor, Pack Lunches, and Pie

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam

spam